


December stills

by ballade_at_thirtyfive



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 04:26:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballade_at_thirtyfive/pseuds/ballade_at_thirtyfive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>December stills.<br/>Including fast cars and sharp objects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	December stills

**Author's Note:**

> The 2006 one is for anonlytree. It simply had to be explored.

2004

It had never happened to you before. You’re young and you’re curios and you’ve never wanted anything in your life before. Things just became yours as a natural consequence of being.

You tell yourself it’s a purely intellectual exercise- you recognize your foolishness almost instantly. But you look at him and you turn into a child playing with fire. This man can lead entire legions, it’s only natural that you wonder how deep he could wound you.

Or maybe that’s just what you tell yourself because you don’t want to admit you tripped and fell as all twenty year olds trip and fall.

Of course, for them is all smoke and mirrors because _they_ haven’t seen his eyes and the lines that appear around them when he laughs, they haven’t then thought of a millions ways to make him laugh; _they_ weren’t mesmerized by his presence on the field and they haven’t met the man he is off it.

Simply put, they can’t possibly be in love because they are not in love with Steven Gerrard.

You recognize this as a dangerous train of thought but there’s no harm in looking from afar, right? It’s almost with childlike wonder that you’re waiting to get your heart broken, yes, but you’re not bothering anyone in the process.

You still think you can fall in love as you slide into tackles.

And then you see the way Carra tackles and you start asking yourself some very important questions on this theory of yours.

But by then Stevie came to return a jacket you lent to Alex and you’re young and curios and viciously, viciously cruel. 

2006

You're a mess of limbs, hard and coiled and freezing after running around in the snow only in your shorts, like mentally challenged five year olds. He’s biting on your ear, you’re rutting against his leg and it’s a Christmas Miracle you made it through the door. There’s melting snow on your spine and you shiver into his kisses with such violence you almost headbutt him. He’s peeling off your wet clothes, with medical purposes, of course and you follow suit.

First, do no harm.

Next, roll around on the bed, jotting your ribcages.

‘Stevie.. the door-’

‘Leave it!’

You arch an eyebrow.

He keeps on kissing bruises all over your chest and how the fuck could you even think to protest.

It’s only after you’ve taken a very hot shower (taking turns at being either under the scorching water or under the other) and crawling next to him in bed that something strikes you as wrong.

‘Stevie, this isn’t our room, is it?’

‘Nope.’

2007

‘ _Vale, tio_ , can you take me home?’

‘Aren’t you even going to buy me a drink first? Or did you down mine too? _Un poco boraccho, si?_ ’

‘No, you idiot, we drove here together.’

The room is getting smaller with every passing second and you’d rather talk politics with Carra that deal with Alvaro’s antics but no cab company is taking your calls. You try to calm down enough to convince him to give you his car keys and take a cab with Nando after.

You don’t convince him.

He gives you the keys.   

‘You good to drive?’

He looks at you with all the sobriety he can gather with his shirt half undone and a happy-drunk smile on his face.

‘Yes, I’m good.’

His hand stills on your arm. You’d crush him in a hug, but that would only make him believe you’re planning to bend his car around the nearest pole. He’d try to talk to you which would invariably lead him away from where he’s planning to do body shots with Carra for much of the audience’s amusement.

You’re not a cruel man so you just nod curtly and make your way out.

Nobody follows.

You find yourself driving faster and faster and faster and it’s still not even close to enough.

You’re losing all sense of control. Everywhere.  You’re always one fucking step behind and every step is just another opportunity for a vertigo so strong you want to crawl to the ground and tell them to go the fuck ahead and let you be.

You’re somewhere around Stoke when you think that losing him must hurt less than losing all sense of direction.

You’re 20 miles from Eccleshall when that thought is crawling under your skin with such obscenity you stop to throw up on the side of the road.

Seven miles to Stafford it’s the car that stops, having run out of gas. You consider walking the distance back to Liverpool just to punch Alvaro in the face and call him a penny-pinching _hijo de puta._

The thought that you can’t even kick the car in anger because you can’t risk a foot injury almost reduces you to tears.

You turn on the GPS so you can give the exact location to the car service. You’re in no mood for cheap metaphors that would entail you telling the poor operator who’s working on Christmas Eve that you have no fucking clue where you are.  Or where you’ll be tomorrow. Or the day after. Or two hours from now.  Or from which wing Chelsea will attempt to fuck your defense. Or if Alvaro’s car is petrol or diesel.

All you do know is that you are 7 miles from Stafford on the M6, biting your nails and hoping Nagore will be awake when you arrive so she can start a fight and you can get out of your head for once. 

2008

His thumb is drawing lazy circles on your hipbone. It still makes your blood feel like mulled wine so you hold a moment of silence for that three year theory.

You’ve come to accept the hopelessness of it.

And yet, it feels too much like a reflex to properly hold you down.  And you wish he would.. fucking hell, how you wish he would. You’re exactly the same height (regardless of what he might claim) so he could cover you entirely, from the wrinkled lines of his forehead to the battered lengths of your toes. You’d melt under his gaze just to have him fall into you.

You shift to rest the sole of your foot on his calf and he wrinkles his nose in your hair in protest of the cold.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. I was just thinking that I’d consider changing aggregation states for you.’

He huffs and presses mindless kisses to your hairline.

‘Such a romantic.’

You shrug, softly as to not shift his weight.

_It seems so, yes. I am sorry._

You open your mouth to tell him you’re shattered into these tiny sharp pieces, but then again, how could you expect him to hold you here if you’re threatening him with various stabbings?

‘I have a feeling this year.. that this is the season, y’know?’

It’s three a.m. in some godforsaken inn, you’ve rented the rooms on both the left and the right side of you and he still whispers those words in your neck, afraid they’ll come back to taunt him.

You link your fingers with his.

‘I think so to.’

December makes for painful goodbyes. 

2011

_Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!_

_Xabi and Nagore_

_Best wishes in the New Year!_

_The Gerrards_

2013

You answer instinctively. The sleeping baby in your arms could offer you a great excuse not to, but, for once, you’re not looking for one. Contrary to your taste in music, it seems that love is not always such a complicated affair. Sometimes the people under whom you writhed so hard you thought you had a stroke call you around Christmas to exchange pleasantries.

Sometimes they call just to breathe on the other line.

It takes you a good thirty seconds to realize you’re holding the phone against what you suppose is now your bad ear. You maneuver the phone just in time to hear him laugh 2000 miles away.

‘Sorry, Stevie, my eardrum.. it’s pretty fucked for now.’

Emma stirs and you start rocking her gently still listening to the carefree laughter of someone on a sports scholarship being caught smoking behind the bleachers.

There’s a sense of wrongdoing resting in the dip of your collarbone but it’s a jeweled heaviness, if anything.

‘So, tell me, do you have to wear some sort of flowery shower cap or are showers completely out of the question now? 

You whisper-huff as indignantly as you can manage but he gives you no time to intervene.

‘Fucking hell, Xabs, you finally found an excuse for taking those baths of yours. I can even picture it: some of Nagore’s scented candles, a book you won’t open because you’re afraid you’ll ruin, the shower cap, of course-.. ’

‘Whatever gets you going, Stevie.’

‘Lose the cap and we’ll talk.’

‘Oh, for the love of-!’

You close the phone on the sound of his laughter and grin down at Emma.

December dulls. 

2024

‘Why don’t you ask your father?’

‘I did. He taught me how to use a trimmer.’

‘That will come in handy in ten years’ time. Never did learn to use one properly myself..’

You smirk remembering that Stevie tries to grow a beard every six months, after complaining of beard burn for at least three beforehand.

Alex calls it beggar chic.  You’ve grown fond of it.

‘Well, it’s more of a wrist thing, there’s no need to put any pressure, especially with these new blades. You just layer the cream and wooooshhh!’

‘And woosh?!’

‘And woooooosh!’

Jon still doesn’t look entirely convinced but, nevertheless, he starts mimicking Stevie’s movements in a focused silence.

You step away quietly because you’re not in the mood to be mocked for your lack of dexterity in dealing with sharp objects.

And because you’re a sentimental fool.

You go back after you hear Jon banging the door and rummaging through his drawers. You have a feeling there’s a petition going around town among all fathers of daughters aged 13-18 to keep Jon Alonso as far as humanly possible. If there’s not, you consider starting one yourself, for the sake of your sanity.

You step into the bathroom to watch Stevie as he dabs his face with a towel; you probably have a grin big enough to swallow the entire Basque region.

‘You’re gonna scratch me, aren’t you?’

‘So little trust..’ you shake your head walking to him.

‘Well, you can’t be trusted.’

‘And you can’t grow a beard.’

‘Such slander..’

You circle your arms around him and start nipping at one of the cuts on his jaw.

He kisses you with a hunger you’d have never thought to associate with happiness.

You lick every cut and then some. 

2025

_A very Merry Christmas!_

_Stevie and Xabi_

_12:47 pm: Fucking hell, I did NOT want to see that! I did not want to see that AT ALL!_

_13:01 pm: Ehm.. Sorry Jamie, attached the wrong photo._

_13:07 pm: I feel it is my duty as you ex-wife to point out you’ve sent that to everyone you know. I think I even spotted Ferguson’s email address in there #earlygrave #notnicestevie_

_13:09 pm: He designs fucking phone apps, FUCKING PHONE APPS!!!! WHY the fuck are you in charge of attaching things? I need to drink myself into a stupor._

_13:26 pm: Stevie, I can’t see what you’ve attached, it is not in any of the instructions you’ve written me but Merry Christmas, darling. Kisses, Mum xx_

_13:31 pm: #toptopplayerthough_

_13:40 pm: For the love of all that is holy, Nic is asking me if Xabi does yoga!!!!_

_13: 48 pm: Nevermind, I’ll just go to Mrs. Roberts from across the street, you know how tech savvy she is. Her daughter works for the BANK OF ENGLAND!!_

‘Have you seen my phone?’

‘What? No.’

‘Stevie.. why are you naked?’

‘I panicked..?’

‘I don’t want to know, do I?’

‘Know.. what?’

‘Oh _joder,_ Steven.. _that’s.._ not playing…..fair.’

‘I ain’t …fuck..Who’s playing? ..I ain’t play-… Oh my fucking fuuuuck dothatagain!!’

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Happy Holidays! And not just in 2025 when that photo will be leaked. By Carra, most likely.


End file.
